Wylfa/Turkey

8th December 2018

Japan has all but abandoned plans to export nuclear plant technology to Turkey, dealing another blow to a pillar of the Abe administration’s economic growth strategy. The government and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI) had planned to play a key role in the construction of a nuclear plant in the Sinop area along the Black Sea coast of Turkey. But with costs expected to double from initial forecasts, the Japanese side decided it is no longer feasible to continue with the plan. In fact, the only possibility of a Japanese company constructing a nuclear plant abroad now is a plan in Britain being pursued by Hitachi Ltd. But higher cost estimates have also led to uncertainty over that project’s future. Government officials obviously did not want to push MHI into a money-losing project in Turkey considering what happened to Toshiba Corp. after its U.S. nuclear technology subsidiary Westinghouse went bankrupt.

Clients have included Greenpeace, Nuclear Free Local Authorities, WWF Scotland and the UK Government’s Committee on Radioactive Waste Management.

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